AAS - 2014

The Winter American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting is the largest meeting of professional astronomers in the world. NITARP educators attend an AAS first to meet their team, then they go home and work remotely for much of the year, and then attend an AAS to present their results. At any given AAS, then, we could have two NITARP classes attending - those finishing up, and those getting started. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The 2013 and 2014 NITARP teams attended the 2014 January AAS meeting in National Harbor, MD (outside of Washington, DC). The 2013 class was presenting results and the 2014 class was starting up. We had a lot of alumni raise their own money to come back as well. We sent about 75 people to the AAS and had a grand time. Please see the special article on NITARP at the AAS. One of our participants, Peggy Piper, participated in a Congressional briefing on Thursday! All the posters we presented are linked from the team's pages below, except for HG-WELS and SIRXS, because they are the two new teams.

Quotes

Overall, this experience was one of the best experiences educationally, personally and professionally. It was great to be part of a project and it forced me to learn, very quickly. I liked how I didn’t know everything about my project to begin with. It made me become a better learner because I was asking the questions for understanding the content. In the end, I was in charge of my learning and I learned so much because of it.

[student:] The most interesting thing I learned that conventions are at least as social as they are scientific events.

[student:] This experience changed the way I thought about astronomy. Originally, I honestly thought it was pointless. I mean what could have been so important looking up at the stars? I realized how terribly wrong I was when I started going to the many different talks. What I found out is that we need astronomy. Astronomy, from what I have gathered, can tell us about the past of the universe, and predictions on the future. We have created tools that can literally see and reconstruct what the past sky looked like as well as project what the future of our solar system will become! Astronomy is an amazing field, and we have only unlocked a very small portion of what the universe is like. Given time we might one day understand what is really going on out there.

Thanks again for this amazing opportunity. I really hope it can continues even in light of the difficult financial times. It would be a terrible loss if it went away because it feels a very specific niche that is not met by any other program I have seen.

I really enjoyed meeting members of the other NITARP teams and comparing their experience to mine. Everyone’s experience was different, but there seemed to be an overwhelming consensus that NITARP was the most significant, educational, and enjoyable professional development experience they have ever had. I could not agree more.